Jonge medewerkers leren omgaan met vervelende collega’s

14 februari 2012

Bijna iedereen die langere tijd met meerdere mensen moet samenwerken krijgt er vroeg of laat mee te maken: collega’s die energie zuigen. Na verloop van tijd leer je meestal wel hoe je daar het beste mee om kunt gaan maar als je nog maar net komt kijken is dat verduiveld lastig. The Awl kwam vorige week met een paar tips voor jonge mensen, waarbij de nadruk wordt gelegd op de diva’s, de vampieren, de saboteurs en de zielloze carrièremakers. Het advies is te mooi om er niet uit te citeren, vind ik:

Then there are a smaller number of operators, divas, drama queens, vampires, bitter underminers and soulless careerists. This is what we are concerned with today.

These people are commonly regarded as annoyances. That is not quite correct, but a few of them are. You will learn to recognize the vampires. They’re easy to disregard. They corner you, physically or digitally. They are coworkers who text you on weekends. They touch you in the office, in an attempt to suck energy through your skin. They stand in doorways, preventing people from passing. They tell you long, agitated and boring stories about people you don’t know. (So do the drama queens.) They post on your Facebook page. They are unable to read normal friendship signals and pursue interactions that you have not instigated. You must not encourage these people; they’ll follow you around for years, even when you no longer work together. You must 100% not engage, and let them have no traction. Eventually they will wander off.

The drama queens are a little more dangerous, because sooner or later you’ll “betray” them and become a character in the stories that they bore someone else with. When they finally snap, go cold. Don’t apologize, engage or grovel. If there’s one thing I wish I’d learned at 18, it’s that it’s okay if a crazy person hates you. Everyone else will understand in time. Meanwhile, let them expend that energy. Go work on your novel or whatever.

And the bitter underminers, well, they’re too obvious to even worry about. OMG they’re going to make fun of you on their Tumblr!? That’s okay. They are just frustrated. Be nice to them, they can get better with time, because eventually most of them realize that composing nasty emails about people they don’t really know to their friends all day has been a waste of their energies. Some of these people turn out great actually!

Because vampires and divas and underminers are so loud and distracting, they take up all the emotional energy that we should actually be devoting to the real enemy. This is why we never destroy the soulless careerists. This is, I think, the number one mistake that we make in the world of work. These are the boys who suck up to the boss’s boss. They’re backslappers. These are the girls who beg you to come out for drinks so they can talk about the tortures of their latest job offers.

Gerelateerd:
Over raamambtenaren en grijs verzuim
Waarom je op het werk niet kunt werken
Een punt zetten
Sabotage in de organisatie
Welkom in het riool

@